Across Canada over the past several weeks, police officers have been dressing as panhandlers and clutching cardboard signs to mimic the curbside come-ons in order to get close enough to see drivers using handheld phones while driving.

Despite all the hype, countless studies and the pontificating by the self-righteously smug that hordes of us are dying because we were all so distracted by our iPhones, it turns out the banning of in-car communications by many jurisdictions (including Ontario) has not reduced accidents one iota. Indeed, there’s a possibility that the restrictions made things worse.